This exhibit illuminates Oregon’s vibrant black community and their courage, struggle and progress amongst a larger context of discrimination and displacement during the civil rights movement in Oregon in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

50 Years of KBOO is the story of Oregon’s first community radio station. Learn how KBOO started as a relief to Portland’s bleak FM desert and became a community effort to build a more accessible media. This exhibition reveals how KBOO connects to counter-culture and activism locally as well as nationally. See how radio is made, and how listener-supported radio first came to be, as part of a chronicle of our region’s shared history.

For 150 years, Oregon State University has provided access to a high-quality college education for all Oregonians, solving tough challenges through groundbreaking research, serving community needs, and propelling the state and global economy. This exhibit shares — through 150 stories — how Oregon State University has transformed the community, the state, the nation, and the world in surprising ways.

Birds on the Wire presents a gallery of bird photography featuring the work of William L. Finley and Herman T. Bohlman. The exhibit reflects on Finley and Bohlman’s use of photo essays in the Sunday Oregonian to help advance their conservation goals and connect readers with the birdlife of Oregon.

In their explorations of the marshy ponds around turn-of-the-century Portland, William L. Finley and his childhood friend Herman T. Bohlman developed an artistic knack for bird photography. Through popular essays and community lantern slide shows, the pair introduced audiences to the hidden lives of their avian neighbors. Their images and careful observation also provided an important body of scientific evidence and influenced conservation policy.

Visitors were astonished by the rose-lined streets of Portland when they arrived for the Lewis & Clark Exposition in 1905. Rose mania was underway and Portland became internationally known as the Rose City. The year 1907 saw the beginning of the Rose Festival with hedges and home gardens providing millions of roses for floats, women’s hats, and anything else that could be covered in roses. This exhibit chronicles the story of Madame Caroline Testout, the pink rose that made Portland famous and turned Stumptown into the City of Roses.

From a 360 degree intro theater to an immersive build that will let visitors walk through a covered wagon, Experience Oregon will provide a portal to Oregon for all visitors, whether you are a sixth generation Oregonian, a recent arrival to our state, or a tourist from another part of the world. Central themes like water, land, and home span the exhibition’s timeline, inviting viewers to think about how Oregonians have defined our state. By showcasing new and much-loved artifacts, along with diverse voices representing Oregon’s many cultures and geographies, this re-imagined exhibition will engage visitors in the experience of Oregon and its history.

History Hub is an exhibit where Oregon’s youth, students, and families can explore the topic of diversity through fun, hands-on interactives, objects, and pictures. History Hub is developed in partnership with an advisory committee of students, teachers, cultural organizations, and museums to tell the stories of people who live in Oregon, today and in the past. The content of History Hub spans grades K-12 with a focus on 4th – 8th grade.

Oregon Voices examines some of the important people, events, and ideas that have shaped the state in the modern era, from the end of World War II to the present. It features the people of Oregon, from Native Americans, who have lived here since time immemorial, to recent arrivals. It looks at Oregonians who have fought for and against social change. And it explores the land—how people have used it and how they have worked to save it.

On Memorial Day in 1948, the Columbia River, swirling fiteen feet above normal, punched a hole in a railroad embankment that served as a dike, starting a flood that would leave 18,000 people homeless and alter race relations in Portland forever.

Free for Members

Family-friendly

Teachers

Experience Oregon History

The Oregon Historical Society is dedicated to making Oregon's long, rich history visible and accessible to all. For more than a century, the Oregon Historical Society has served as the state's collective memory, preserving a vast collection of artifacts, photographs, maps, manuscript materials, books, films, and oral histories. Our research library, museum, digital platform, educational programming, and historical journal make Oregon's history open and accessible to all. We exist because history is powerful, and because a history as deep and rich as Oregon's cannot be contained within a single story or point of view.